‘You’ve already had two,’ I say.
He lolls stickily against my lap, batting eyelashes that are wasted on a boy. ‘Please, Mummy. One more? I’ll let you work in peace?’
Andy tips his Lucozade bottle at me. ‘I told you. Blackmailers always come back for more.’
In a sudden rush of affection, I pull Kit onto my lap and snuggle him close, heedless of the yoghurt damage to my silk T-shirt. My son may not have been part of my life plan, but now that he’s here, I love the very bones of him. ‘No more Frubes, kid. And no more blackmail. I’m done with my work.’
‘I’m just going to jump in the shower,’ Andy says, standing on the back of his trainers to pull them off, and leaving them, backs still stomped down, in the middle of the kitchen floor. It’s one of his less endearing habits. ‘Then we’d better get going, if we want to beat the traffic.’
I seethe about dinner all the way to Brighton. Slightly to my surprise, I’d actually been looking forward to taking Bella out on our own. She can be a pain in the arse, and she’s stroppy and prickly and self-absorbed, but there’s a vulnerability about her, a loneliness that resonates with me. I’m an only child, raised by a single parent; I know what it’s like to feel isolated and lonely. Bella may have more family than she probably wants, much of the time, but despite all the negative attention she deliberately provokes, no one ever really sees her. She’s just a problem to be managed. She’s not cute like Tolly and Kit, or glossy and confident like most of the other shiny-haired cheerleaders at that over-privileged, entitled private school of hers. She pushes people away, and makes herself difficult to like. In many ways, she’s her own worst enemy. We have that in common, too.
For the first couple of years after Andy and I got together, Bella wouldn’t give me the time of day. Jesus, she was a piece of work. I actually caught her spitting in my coffee once. She blamed me for her parents’ split, and Andy was never going to tell her the truth about what Louise did. But things have changed between us in the last few months or so. Bella is like a cat. If I ignore her, and pretend I don’t care one way or another if she curls up in my lap, she’ll come to me, I know it.
I’ve never been great with small children; I love Kit with all my heart, but spending the entire day with a three-foot-high tyrant who thinks farts are funny is my idea of hell. But teenagers, I get. Their sense the world is out to get them, that no one takes them seriously, their anger and frustration and longing to stand out while desperate to fit in – oh, yeah, they’re playing my song.
I jump when Andy reaches across the car and puts his hand on my thigh. ‘Is something the matter?’ he asks. ‘You’ve been really quiet.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say shortly. ‘Just tired. Work, the usual.’
Andy puts his hand back on the steering wheel. ‘I couldn’t say no to Celia,’ he sighs. ‘The woman’s nearly seventy. Who knows how many of these family celebrations she’s going to see?’
Celia’s strong as an ox. She still goes running every morning, and has competed in the West Sussex Over-Fifties Tough Mudder 10K every spring for years, finishing in the top ten per cent every time. I’ve seen her forking manure onto her bloody roses like she could do it all day. She’ll outlive us all.
‘You know how much family means to her,’ Andy adds, when I say nothing. ‘And you and Louise get on pretty well, these days, don’t you? Plus, it’s good for the kids to see us all together.’
‘They’ll see us at the play.’
‘It’s not the same, is it? And it’s been a while since you spent time with Celia and Brian. It’ll be nice to see them properly again.’
My husband is an intelligent man. He is incredibly well informed; the only son of a BBC radio engineer and a librarian, he was a surprise late baby, born when his mother was forty-four and his father well into his sixties. He grew up listening to the World Service, and reading The Times alongside the Beano. In the twenty-two years he’s been a reporter with INN, he’s covered everything from the September 11 attacks to the civil war in Sudan, interviewing presidents, popes, countless politicians and more showbiz celebrities than you can shake a stick at. He can name the capital city, annual rainfall and GDP of every country in the world (all 195 of them, if you include the Holy See and the State of Palestine). He speaks five languages, including Arabic and Farsi, and even knows how to sign. But sometimes he can be remarkably stupid.
Celia Roberts loathes me, and in her place, frankly, I would, too. She adores Andy; as far as she’s concerned, he replaced the son she lost. She didn’t want to blame him or her nutcase of a daughter for the divorce; far easier to cast me as the scheming home-wrecker, and lay it all at my door.
On the few occasions we’ve met, she hasn’t bothered to hide what she thinks of me. If she were Andy’s mother, I’d have to put on my tin helmet and suck it up. But she’s his ex-mother-in-law! Andy and Louise are divorced. There’s no earthly reason why I should ever have to see her, never mind put up with being treated like shit on the sole of her shoe.
I let it go now, not wanting to row in front of Kit, but when we get to the house in Brighton, I work off my fury airing the place out and remaking all the beds. Andy slopes off to his study. I know he’s calling Louise. He has that familiar, hangdog air.
I’d planned to wear a simple pair of skinny black jeans this evening, with a silvery halter top I know Andy loves, but suddenly think better of it. I’m going to be walking into the school auditorium with a scarlet letter on my back. The other woman, the trophy wife. I know from experience what it’ll be like: the cold stares, the conversations that fall silent as I walk past, then resume when I’m not quite out of earshot. Louise is a popular parent; she knows most of the other mothers, she’s served on the PTA, and even got the school newspaper up and running a couple of years ago. Being hated is exhausting. I’m never going to win friends here, but there’s no need to lean into my shredded reputation.
Sifting through my wardrobe, I pull out a pale pink tweed Chanel suit I bought at cost after a photoshoot we did for Vogue last year. It’s a bit prim and Jackie O, not very me, but I knew it’d come in handy for something like this. It’s ironic: until I met Andy, I never cared what anyone thought of what I wore. I dressed for me. I’ve inherited my mother’s high breasts and good legs, and I used to like showing them off. But since we married, I’ve felt self-conscious about wearing anything too revealing. I don’t want to look like a bimbo on Andy’s arm.
My husband pulls a face when I join him in the sitting room, where he and Kit are cosied up on the sofa watching Peter Rabbit for the billionth time. ‘That’s a bit much for a school play, isn’t it?’
I look down at myself. ‘You don’t like it?’
‘It’s not my favourite look,’ Andy says doubtfully.
‘You look weird,’ Kit agrees. ‘Like an old lady.’
‘Exactly the image I was going for,’ I say crossly. I switch off the television, ignoring Kit’s howl of protest. ‘Come on. We need to get going. Louise said we had to be there early if we wanted to get good seats.’